Homekit Automations are broken in iOS 16

Sorry to hear it. The only thing that is still unreliable here is creating time of day automations from the

Apple Home App.

Some comments below. Good luck regardless.

1. I have the experience that if you delete accessories and then add them back on there can be "no response" issues as there is a conflict with the previous instance of the same accessory . Maybe try logging in and out from your iCloud account on all devices to "clear out the cache" there?
2. Use the Eve app for Time of day rules until Apple fixes their Home app.

1. Also, not too helpful now, but for complicated setups and for the next time, try something like this to make a backup so you do not have to start from scratch and redo all manually:

Had some success with this: https://apps.apple.com/se/app/controller-for-homekit/id1198176727?l=en

Did some more research to try and pin this down for workarounds until it is fixed.

Have not spent a lot of time on it so this is preliminary.

It appears it is the _new edits_ to automations that are currently broken in iOS/TVOS 16.xx

Hence the various workarounds that appear to work somewhat. Mine is that "touching" an automation (rule) in the Eve app also works. But deleting an automation and recreating it appears to work every time in Home app also.

Then additional editing in the Apple Home app tends to (not every time) stop the automation from working again unless you change only the time of day. Not conclusive but is at least some clues.

So there's that with the ususual caveat for variations in various setups. Mine is with an ATV 4K (pre matter).

Oh right... hello everyone....👋 like everyone here, I had issues with the automatization, scenes, etc... just when I was about to give up and start a whole new home from scratch, I figured something by accident that made it work again. Not sure if someone already mentioned it on the thread but:

"Just make sure all of your devices, eg. phones, tables, etc., that have access to and control HomeKit in your network are updated to the latest OS 16", that's it. I mean all of the devices.

We have 15 different automatizations, and like most of you, most of our house runs on smart HomeKit devices. All our mobile phones and AppleTV, and laptops have the latest update, but I didn't check my iPad Pro; I mean, why would you... anyways, today, I ran the latest OS version; once done, automatization started running smoothly, just like before. 🤷 I don't have a technical explanation.

But give it a try, and I hope it helps 🤙

The key is the controller.

HomeKit devices in in general, are not going to fail because of an IOS update. This is why, switching from the current active controller, usually a HomePod, to another controller in your system solves the problem. Updates to these wireless devices, especially the HomePods, are quirky don’t seem to update very reliably.

when a HomeKit automation fails, the simple solution is just to force it to go to another controller by taking the currently active controller off the line for a minute.

rebuilding your system completely is really not a very good solution. It’s like trying to hit a fly with a hammer.

Focus on the current active controller, don’t rebuild an automation that was working, don’t try to rebuild a system that was working, look at the active controller and upgrade/take off-line for a minute/reset and the problem goes away.

basic electronics

Completely agree. It keeps happenings intermittently to me, even after I did all these other steps to get automations working again.

For me now the consistent issue is the home hub becoming unresponsive. It's like it goes into a deep sleep. When that happens, HomeKit fails to fire anything since the hub isn't responding. I restart it, which reactivates it but also swaps the home hub to one of my other devices. This has been my fix now for this issue. Otherwise, when the home hub is acting as it should, all automations fire correctly.

I've sent feedback to Apple about this with logs. Hopefully this gets some movement. This happens on both my Apple TV and my HomePods, so I think it's an overall issue with the way the devices are programmed to sleep or something.

My best fix (as recommended by someone in here) was to remove the Home Pod Mini, then delete the HomeKit app, now REBOOT THE PHONE, and reinstall the HomeKit (which kept all of the automations and scenes in the Cloud BTW) and then simply reinstall the pod. Pretty simple really. This fixed all of my automation issues.

Uninstalling the HomeKit and HomePod and rebooting before reinstalling worked for me. BE SURE TO REBOOT THE PHONE BETWEEEN HOMEKIT UNINSTALL AND REINSTALL. No, I'm not talking about removing the "Home" in the app, I'm talking about removing the HomeKit app. The settings in the app will return with the reinstall.

Some background info for anyone new to HomeKit

Every device plays apart in the HomeKit operation and every device is dependent on other devices.

Restarting hubs and i devices has helped me on occasion.

i devices are the interface to interact with hubs settings and Hubs communicate to you smart devices

And because of this, I have had many issues when the hub and the i devices are on different software versions

(I believe this happens when one version has newer security protocols)

I have had the most issues when running multiple hubs (ie Apple TV and HomePod)

when the Active Hub changes for what ever reason many smart devices seem to have a tough time changing over.

the OP original issue is almost certainly an issue with the iOS 16, I solved my issue (same as op) by updating the HomePod to the latest beta, and it is still working perfectly, so the next release should solve this issue.

3 take away point I have learned the hard way

and is good practice.

• less is more when it comes to hubs
• ALL devices should be software updated together
• restart your hub regularly (like once a fortnight)

hope this is helpful.

I created and automation for 11:00 PM that turned off all my lights, closed the garage door, and locked the doors. My Automations stopped working if I renamed them after creating them. If I left the name as it was when the automation was created, it would work. I did also create this automation as a shortcut that did work.

NOTE: It is my understanding the Regular Automations are hosted in the App on my phone, but Automations that are converted to Shortcuts are then controlled by the Hubs. Please let me know if that is not correct.

What actually solved my problem with the original automation was I went into my Apple TV 4K, which was also operating as a hub and followed these steps:

Settings

Airplay and HomeKit

Home Hub

Disabled

Rebooted the Apple TV 4K (not sure if I needed to do this, but why not...)

Settings

Airplay and HomeKit

Home Hub

Connected (to my home name)

I thought about deleting the entire Home App and Accessories, but that seemed extreme until I tried this approach.

I just did this today, so I hope it keeps working in real-time, but the testing I did makes me hopeful...

iPhone 13 Pro IOS: 16.1.2

Apple TV 4K (64GB, 2021): 16.1

HomePod Mini (2020): 16.1

Same issue, same inconsistencies. In my case I achieve a state of relatively good operations when I make sure that my Apple TV 4K 2017 is NOT the connected hub. Any HomePod works, but nothing will run reliably on the appletv. I have since disabled it as a hub.

I had similar problems with family members after upgrading to 16.2

Make sure that:

All members are on 16.2 and ALL hubs are as well.

Unplug all hubs and wait until they appear as not reachable in Homekit

Plug one in again and wait till it appears

Delete family member that does not work

re-invite them.

That worked for me

Maybe a work around(?) Pull the plug on the AppleTV.

Every time that I make a change, I then pull the plug on my AppleTV. Wait 30 seconds and plug it back in. This has consistently allowed the automations to work after any changes are made.

As background:

Tried: Delete/recreate home, Reset AppleTV, Configure scenes for all automations.

Configuration: Ten plug devices from three different manufactures

Final Solution: Place an automated plug on the AppleTV and power on/off with the manufacture's app.

To disable appletv as a hub you go into Settings > AirPlay and HomeKit > scroll to the bottom and click to “Disabled” on the item under “Home Hub” section. In my case this shows “Home” but I suspect it will show the name of your home here.

And then, when you go to your home’s settings in the home app you will see under Hubs & Bridges that your appletv shows a status “Disabled”. It will not become the leader anymore. And with it, in my case, my automation troubles are resolved.

At least here, the issue is completely solved by updating to latest Dec 13 versions of iOS, TVOS and Mac OS.

Read the documentation before you upgrade your home from the admin account. Especially users with multiple homes and older devices in use. But basically the upgrade moves all actions to the hub and it looks like a sensible and useful upgrade.

YMMV as always.

i didn’t want to say 100% bc it’s tech. What I can say, the new interface, it’s not jumping homehubs at all. I have 4 and it remains connected to just one. It’s much more stable now. 16.2 only been out a week or so. So far has been significantly better than iOS 16